


Magic of Misfortune

by LadyNightingGaleofMilvania



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: MT!Noctis, Zegnautus Keep, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 09:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17384213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyNightingGaleofMilvania/pseuds/LadyNightingGaleofMilvania
Summary: Gladio and Ignis had become separated from Noctis, in their desperate search they come across Prompto and from there fate only twisted their futures darker.





	Magic of Misfortune

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MagitekUnit05953234](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/gifts).



> This was essentially a prompt thrown out by the fantastic MagitekUnit05953234 which captivated me and I just couldn't look away!

Ignis and Gladiolus had torn through the whole of Zegnautus Keep in search of their prince-come-king. The large fortress-like building full of twists and turns and dead ends. After what felt like their hundredth dead end they came across a room filled with cells, and a most familiar figure strung up at the end…

Racing to the figure, tied up and locked away, they found that it was Prompto who looked battered and bruised. Frantically they opened the door--finding it unlocked, much to their shock--as they rushed inside to release the young gunslinger from his bindings. Ignis held him while Gladio set to work undoing each limb, doing first the feet and then each arm, before setting Prompto down on the floor.

“Are you alright?” Ignis asked, checking over the younger blonde.

Prompto didn’t seem to hear him as he looked between the other two.

“Where’s Noct?” he asked, eyes widened in fear.

“We’re still lookin’ for him.” came Gladiolus’ reply.

 _“Ahhhh, so you’ve seem to find you little friend? But not the one you were hoping for, eh?”_ came Ardyn’s taunting voice, coming through the speakers in the cell and echoing off the walls.

What little color Prompto had immediately drained from his face, heart stopping as his veins filled with ice. He remembered Ardyn saying something as he had been affixed to the metal cross about wanting to play a game, but he thought it had been another trick of his, another trial to pass through to prove his devotion to Noctis. Prompto immediately got up and frantically began to run out of the room and down the halls, where he had no clue, when he heard footsteps behind him and a name being shouted. Someone grabbed his arm and he pivoted, seeing Gladio’s face.

“We’ve been all over, you can’t just run of on your own or the two of us will have to find you again.” the Advisor warned from behind the large man, his dark glasses hiding a blank look but not the furrow of his brow.

“I don’t think we’ve been here yet, Iggy.” Gladio said, looking at the unfamiliar walls, or were they familiar? All of the passageways looked vaguely alike with very few things to tell them apart, which was how they got turned around in the first place.

 _“Uh-oh, you’ve gotten closer but you may want to hurry,”_ Ardyn’s jeering voice said in faux concern, _“He’s starting to not look so good.”_

Terror washed over their features. What was Ardyn doing to Noctis? So far he had only come over the loudspeaker to tease them when they were close to something so that must mean…

Ignis walked quickly forward, his cane _tap tap tap_ -ing against the hardened surface for the floor.

“I hear something,” he said, feeling his way forward and turning into a room. Gladio and Prompto hurried behind him, not wanting to leave the blinded man to his own devices in case any daemons decided to show up..

The room Ignis had turned into was large with screens plastered along one side of the wall, nothing in them moving. Ignis had stopped in front of the panel below them and was running his fingers lightly over key that he could neither see, nor read. The other two stepped forward as their eyes glossed over the screens.

“Noct!”

“Where is he, Gladio?” Ignis asked, his head turning toward the man’s voice.

“I think I know how to get to him.” Prompto said quietly, earning a look from both men.

“All the halls look the same, Prompto.” Gladio said through gritted teeth, he knew that he shouldn’t get mad at the youngest of the three but the phrase just seemed to strike some nerve.

“I--ah--recognize some of these hallways on the screens from when Ardyn had two MTs tie me up.”

“How?” Ignis asked warily.

Prompto looked visibly unsettled and shifted.

“Prompto, how can you tell?” Ignis pushed, voice slightly more firm this time at the gunslinger’s silence.

“It’s the… the bodies… or their clothes at least… the piles…” Prompto managed to get out, looking away.

Ignis froze and Gladio slowly looked back to examine the screens. Now that Prompto had pointed it out he truly noticed the piles and strays of clothing, jackets and hats and shoes and shirts, all of military or scientist look. How many were there? How many seemed to have vanished into thin air? Prompto took another look at the screens and made for the direction of the door they had come from.

“It’s this way, I think…” Prompto seemed to whisper to himself.

The corridors looked less uniform now, Gladio’s eyes now being drawn to each garment that lay abandoned on the floor. Some hallways held only one lone set of clothes, while others had several piled on top of each other haphazardly as though their owners had tumbled atop each other when they had vanished. Suddenly Gladio made sure to avoid stepping on the articles, treating them as through they were graves, while Ignis did his best to do the same, pushing them aside gingerly with his cane. They followed Prompto through the winding halls that now more closely resembled a cemetery. Before they knew it they were in a giant room filled with inactive MTs, all eerily standing at attention despite not being awake. In the center was one that held a familiar face in the armor.

“Noct!” Prompto breathed, terror plain in his voice as he sprinted forward toward his friend.

Noctis stood there unmovingly, staring straight ahead with flat eyes in a blank face. There were limbs that had obviously removed, a bare MT arm and leg and a pulsing core that stood above his body, but there was no telling what lay underneath. He was expressionless as Prompto approached and tried to get his attention.

“Is he---” Ignis began, fear in his voice, “is he alright?”

“I--I don’t know.” Gladio said with worry, “I don’t know Iggy…”

“Noct, buddy, _look at me_.” Prompto begged.

That got a reaction, Noctis’ head whipping to face Prompto, eyes still as dead-looking as before. His body never moved with it, simply stood in its place. Prompto could practically feel the heat rush to his barcode that lay underneath its cover. He was the one born to become one of the mechanical MTs, yet his friend was the one who had wound up with his fate. It was too much to bear as the tears flowed down his face and his heart shattered in his chest.

“Can we still get him to the crystal?” Ignis asked, which earned another reaction that went unnoticed as Gladio turned to face the Advisor.

“We don’t even know where the crystal’s _located_.” Gladio replied.

Noctis started moving, sharp precise steps, toward an exit. The three scrambled after him as Noct kept up a steady pace, quickly finding themselves standing before a large room and at the end of it.

“Crystal location found.” Noctis said, only it almost wasn’t even his voice. It was devoid of any emotion, flat, monotone, _dead_. “Property of the Niflheim Empire, acquired from the Kingdom of Lucis.”

Noctis again went still, not even seeming to _breathe_ as the four stood there at the entrance.

“I see you found my little…” came Ardyn’s voice, the man becoming visible once he stepped out into their view and blocked the Crystal with his own body as he approached, “ _pet project_ I guess you could call it.”

Noctis marched toward Ardyn at that moment, allowing the man to embrace him while never returning the motion. He turned about face and remained there as Ardyn slung an arm over his shoulder.

“I think it’s time for him to go and reclaim his precious Crystal, what say you?” the man smiled menacingly as he released his hold and Noctis proceeded past him, continuing onward until he had stood before it.

Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto rushed past Ardyn to get to Noctis, who had reached out a hand to touch the Crystal and got shot backward by a blast, his body lying broken on the floor as the core began to darken. Gladio and Prompto both tried to revive their monarch as Ignis stood blindly on, unable to do anything. His unseeing eyes stared directly at Ardyn who had transformed, thick, black miasma of Starscourge dripping down his face and a creepy smile forming on his lips.

“I win.”


End file.
